Sunday, December 13, 2015

Words from Elder Garrett Hollembeak in West VIrginia

It was a great week here in Parkersburg, West Virginia. We had a total of three Thanksgiving dinners, with a few dessert stops along the way, so we got our fill of turkey. The holiday was a great opportunity to be with our less active families, and a few non-member families that had relatives in. One of the families we visited lives in a little town called Mineral Wells outside of Parkersburg. Their son Joe has been taking the discussions with the Morgantown YSA missionaries and he invited us over for Thanksgiving. It was a really neat full circle moment, seeing work go on from my first area impact me almost two years later. The Lord is very detailed with his blessings. This week we also made some good headway with an investigator named Jena. We've been meeting with her for about six months and her mom's fiance passed away last week. She called us over to pray with her mom and share some scriptures with her. When we met with her later she told us about how seeing Robert pass away helped her understand that we do have a spirit and that there is more out there than what we can see. She still has some anxiety about coming to church but I think she's not far off, and once she starts coming it won't be long until she's baptized. We've also been really blessed with a lady named Jean who is progressing really well. Her granddaughter Whitney joined the church back in July and we started going over to Jean's to help with yard work in September. At first we just served and answered the occasional question and now she's meeting with the Northside missionaries every week and has come to church the last three Sundays. What's even better is that her dad was a member of the church but stopped attending when she was seven and she wasn't exposed to the church after that. So the Lord is working on this family and I have no doubt that there are people pulling for her on the other side of the veil. She told us a story she heard when she was a kid about a lion that had been raised by goats all of his life and thought he was a goat. When he got older he saw another lion and recognized what he really was. She said that when we started coming around she realized what she really was and knows that deep down she supposed to be a latter day saint. We have high hopes for her that she will be baptized in the coming months. I hope you guys are all doing good, I'm excited to hear about the girl from your home teaching family that is getting baptized, we'll keep her in our prayers. I love you guys and am grateful for everything you do for me.